open source marketer and community manager

Month: April 2010

I wanted to make sure that newest Ubuntu 10.04 being a Long Time Support one would be capable of running the newest Funambol DS Server version 8.5. I can confirm: not a problem there. I downloaded the 32bit .bin package from Funambol Forge, issued the install command with sudo sh funambol-8.5.0.bin and I was ready to sync with Gnome Evolution and my Nokia E71 in a breeze. While I was at it, I have created a VirtualBox appliance that you can download and use for an even faster test drive (username: funambol, password: fun2test). ﻿﻿It’s a massive 1.3gb download: if you find it useful, I may use some help to make a torrent file. Since this virtual appliance doesn’t have an X server, you need to run the Funambol Admin Tool (for Windows or GNU/Linux) from your desktop machine. Have fun.

My previous post on the topic generated quite a discussion about Open Document Format (aka ISO 26300) documents on mobile platforms. My argument was that ODF support on most mobile platforms is still poor compared to the proprietary counterparts. From the discussion that happened on identi.ca I learned about a quite decent Symbian reader for ODF files, called Office Reader. I tested it using Funambol email push and sync client on my Nokia E71 and the results are quite good. You can see from the screenshots below (taken from a pretty complex ODT test file) that the text rendered correctly. I’m confident that I would be able to get an idea of the attached document and, if it was a press release, for example, I think I would OfficeReader would present enough information to approve it or not. This is the if you want to compare to the mobile version. I’ve tested also a couple of ODP presentations and spreadsheets: they are rendered good enough to get an idea of what kind of document it is, but not as well as the text file.

I downloaded and installed OfficeReader directly from the phone’s browser, but of course all other options are valid. Check the FAQ if you can’t install or run it (I had to allow your phone’s operating system to run unsigned apps).

PS I took the screenshots with the free software Screenshot application (GPL license but the install screen says ‘freeware -not to be sold’ ?!?).

This is the presentation I gave at iPadDevCamp last weekend. Since the offer for Funambol to give Code Sniper grants is always valid, I decided to share it also here. Let me and the Funambol community know what you would like to sync and push to the newest Apple device.

When it comes to software selection, free software can be challenging to evaluate with the usual methodologies. The open source strategist and old time friend Roberto Galoppini has put together an easy to use methodology called SOSOpenSource and a tool to evaluate open source software based on strength (stable, mature and backed by a viable community), level of support (by a community or vendors) and potential for evolution (e.g. code quality).

Roberto run the method on Funambol and the results are really good. Of course, we knew that Funambol is a stable, mature, reliable free software project but it’s always good to see all confirmed by an objective analysis. Enjoy the presentation (slides about Funambol are at the end).

I’m amazed by the cultural vitality of the US free software scene. I have realized listening the keynotes of Tim O’Reilly yesterday and today’s about eGov at DrupalCon 2010 in San Francisco that Italian scene lacks the same vitality (while still placing worldwide leaders on top of big project). I have the impression that 20 years of lack of innovation are starting to take a hit over the most innovative crowd of the country. Free and Open Source is all about innovation, imagining the future that is not there yet: if the future is the same for 20 years there is little to imagine further.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ocean the WhiteHouse.gov released Open Source Code and I was there to hear the announcement. Well done for Drupal, congratulations to the free software community as a whole.

As one of Funambol’s t-shirts say, Italians do IT better. I’m really glad to learn that Stefano ‘Zack’ Zacchiroli has been elected Debian Project Leader for 2010/2011. He graduated and took his PhD at Università di Bologna, where long time Free/Libre Open Source software supporter professor Renzo Davoli also teaches. Congratulations.